Day on the Lake Florida Bed Fishing | Breaking Down a NEW Lake

All right, today we're on a small little local lake that I have never ever been to. We're gonna do something kinda cool, at least for me, it's something I would really like to watch if I was gonna watch somebody's YouTube video. So Bassmaster has a magazine article called A Day on the Lake, where they pick up a pro, they go to a lake the pro's never been to, and they just talk through it all day long. They talk about what the pro's doing, the adjustments they make. So that's what we're gonna do today. We're gonna do a day on the lake on a lake that I have never seen. So right here, we've got the name of the lake right here, which we may not wanna have, but it'll be okay. We're just kinda zooming in and out of the map right here, kinda scrolling around. You can see we put in right there, we've just been kinda drifting, and kinda trying to figure out what exactly is gonna be the hotspots on this lake, or at least what I think it's gonna be. So you can see right here, we've got a bank. This entire side of the lake has a little bit deeper water. This over here is a little bit more flat, which right now, a lot of the fish should be spawning, so this flat stuff is gonna be pretty important, pretty key. But also down here, you've got a deep hole out in the middle, deep part right in the middle, which is pretty typical. The creek channel comes down right here around these docks and stuff, so it'll be a seed of a little bit deeper water right here. Back here, we've got, that's probably, I don't know if that's a river coming in or going out, but I'm gonna assume it's a little creek or river coming in, so we've got two or three different mouths of rivers and creeks that are really, really key, just typically. That's where a lot of fish are gonna be, that's where a lot of bait's gonna be, a lot of moving water, typically. So out here in front of it, a lot of times there'll be grass, this one may be a little bit too deep to have grass out in the middle, but right up here where there's gonna be shallow flats and stuff, like right here's four feet of water, there should be a good bit of grass out here in these bays, right in front of these mouths, should be a good bit of grass on all this shallow stuff, but the grass right here is just gonna have more defined lines, a little bit cleaner and crisp edges to it, and then up here you can see we've got a couple little canals that we can go up in, couple rivers we can go up in, couple little backwaters we can go up in, so for the most part, I'm gonna be looking for this time of year, high spots, close to the bank where these fish will be spawning, I'm gonna look for these creek mouths, try to catch some pre-spawn, some post-spawn, I'm sure they'll be spawning for a little while, and then a lot of the bait and a lot of the fish that are actively feeding, probably gonna be a little bit in some of this grass, close to some of these deeper water holes, close to some of these creek mouths, so that's what we're kinda looking for. We still gotta go piece it together and figure out exactly what we wanna do. I think some of my starting spots are gonna be, think I'm gonna run down here to this side of the lake and go start on some of this shallow main lake stuff and just try to see if I can find some of those fish that are spawning up there or feeding aggressively, and if I can't do that, then I'll probably run across and go back in some of these canals, look for some bed fish, because I love, love, love to bed fish. So come over here, go in some of these little canals, little backwaters, go look around, and if neither of these two things are working, we're gonna back off offshore, try to catch some of those big females that are out on the outside edge of grass, on some of these reed clumps that are on high spots, all that type of stuff. So we just still, we have an idea of where the fish probably will be, but we still gotta go figure out exactly where they are, because the fish don't read a book. They don't have the textbook. So all we do is make educated guesses and then try to go dial it in and make adjustments throughout the day. So we're gonna try to do a good job of talking through that as much as possible today. Let's go ride around on this little small, little local lake and try to figure out how to pronounce it and also try to catch a bass or two. So let's go. Ooh. God, what is that? What is that? A bowfin, I think. Yeah, dude, that thing was huge. What was that thing? Oh, Lord. That was so wild. Like, how many pounds was that? 50. 50? Oh, it was like 12. Dude. That thing was huge. Oh, my God. We caught a little bit of an audible and we're gonna see if we can get in this canal right here. Still low light. Gonna be kind of hard to see in the actual canal, but we're gonna see if we can get in there and look for beds. See if there's any beds. Just kind of check the deal. Just didn't want to drive by it to go to the main lake stuff that I was, you know, attempting to fish. I did live scope around right out in front of the ramp for less than 10 minutes, just trying to get a plan together. Hooked a world record bow fin. No, I'm joking. It wasn't a world record, but it was a dang big one. But I'm gonna get up in here and see if there's a bass or two. Should be. I really like these canals with these gates in front because what it does is actually keeps grass out so you can see the bottom a good bit better. So I like the gates. So we just busted our way in through the gate. The clarity is not great in here, but if they're shallow, I'll be able to see them. So my setup right here, I've got this X-Rap prop tied to about a 18 inch monofilament leader, 15 pound mono. This is the, I think it's the Shooter monofilament, actually, but I have to go back and look. It's the gray stuff. This is 30 pound SX1 Sunline, mainline. You just cast so well with that braid. It makes me wanna, you know, throw braid. A little bit of mono just so that your, dang, one just came right beside the boat. A little bit of mono just so your braid doesn't go and get wrapped around the prop of the bait or the front hook. So just, that mono's a little bit more rigid, a little bit less limp. It just holds that line out in front more so. And you need to use mono because it floats instead of fluorocarbon. So that's the setup for the prop. I'm feeling the frog, feeling the frog. I wasn't looking that time. I didn't know if he got it. That might be a mudfish. First little bed fish. First fish on this lake. Which is what I wanted to do, this bed fish. He's just peeing like crazy. So he's just up there on the side of them reeds. Think there was a bigger female in there at first. Could look like there was about a two and a half in there. So my setup is a five-volt flipping hook and an unpegged quarter-ounce weight. And then any kind of little crawl. I got some that I prefer, but any kind of little crawl is really, really good. Little worms, anything. Anything they can get whenever they're, they're not really trying to eat it. So anything they can really get in their mouth easily is a good flipping bait for bed fishing. Oh, there's a nice one. Looks like he's just cruising through there, though. All right, so we made a little adjustment. Was back in that river for a long time, actually. Saw a bunch of fish. Didn't see many that I thought were catchable. I did catch, I don't know, one, two. Saw some big ones, had one about seven pounds nose up on my bait, then I never seen it again. Not sure if he was even trying to spawn where it swam up to, but definitely showed interest in my bait. But after that, got very tough in there to catch one. I still seen him, seen him the entire time. I got a little one right here in this big hole right here. We're on the main lake, big eelgrass flat right now. This fish is very active, but not aggressive. Swimming around a lot. I just can't get it to really show my bait much attention, which it's not a big one. Some of them I've already caught it. Got a little bit closer, I can see it a little bit better. I don't think it's very big. He was a little booger. It's a pretty one, though. Look at how white he is. It's a 5'0 Gamakatsu, straight shank. It's a pretty fish. He was, he was a booger. All right, so I just went up shallow, fished down a pretty good bank. Caught a pickerel, saw some tiny bass, and had one bass bite that was probably pound and a quarter. So back to the offshore eelgrass holes, which is where they definitely seem to be. At least that's where I've seen them the best today. Didn't have to go far. And I already saw one. All right, made another adjustment to the other side of the lake. A lot more tall and choked out eelgrass over here, which is fine, as long as I find some holes. I just pulled up on one really good hole, got way too close to it, then pitched in it, and then a little buck followed it out and swam off. So they're on this side, too. This lake has a lot of fish, a whole lot of fish. I really like this lake. I just wish I would've fished it a little bit differently because I wasted quite a bit of time doing dumb stuff that sometimes we do, you know? I got in the trap trying to fish for fish that ain't gonna bite, and they're on bed, and they... I like the challenge. When I feel like it's gonna be very difficult to catch one, makes you wanna catch it that much more. But it's not the smartest thing to do sometimes whenever you're trying to catch them. I leave them suckers in a heartbeat in a tournament. There is too much eelgrass here. There are all, like, no holes. This one looks a little bit bigger. Talkin' to the camera, huh? I said this one looks a little bit bigger. Can't see this one super well. Wind's blowin', he's really, really deep, and really, really small, it looks like. I thought he had it, the way he nosed up on that sucker. I thought he was caught. He just ate my weight. Ate my weight, not my bait. Here's another one, a little better. Hooked him on the bottom lip, two-pounder, probably. It's a pretty good one, just in one of these egg holes in the eelgrass, pretty, you know, obvious deal. So we're back at the house now. You know, that was a really, really cool lake. We got kinda caught up, though. I made a little bit of a mental mistake. I saw some really, really nice ones that were not really set up to bite, and I knew it, I knew it early on, but I like the challenge, I like tryin' to catch them, I like tryin' to, like, force it to happen, just as, you know, whenever you got one that's really, really tough to make bite, figurin' out how to make that fish bite is extremely rewarding, but it didn't happen. So I wasted a ton of the day, a big, big bulk of the day, I actually wasted lookin' at some fish that were never, ever going to bite. That's a big mistake, I would've never done that in a tournament, but it's hard to leave when you're lookin' at a bunch of four- to seven-pounders. You know, it's very, very difficult to leave, but a really, really cool lake, lots of grass in that lake, tons of fish, we saw a ton whenever we finally got on the right deal and actually started catchin' them. We saw a ton, but saw a lot of the lake, I would really, really like to go back. Don't think we're gonna be able to in the next, you know, couple of weeks, but phenomenal lake, really happy that we went over there and got to see it, because the fish were kinda set up in a little bit different way than I normally see them. They're really, really deep spawn in some of those eelgrass holes out there really close to the main lake, like in the middle of the lake where I wouldn't have expected it, so it's a really fun, cool lake, and just wish I wouldn't have wasted quite as much time on those ones that weren't gonna bite, but I appreciate y'all guys watchin', and we're gonna go to another small local lake tomorrow and try to maybe make some better decisions throughout the day and catch some, so it'll be fun, we'll see y'all.